


ecdysis

by spookyfoot



Series: desert keith week [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 02:05:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15160025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot
Summary: Night falls and the temperature follows. The cold seeps in with the wind, whistling through the loose slats to tickle the hairs at the back of Keith’s neck. Somewhere outside, a coyote howls with no answer. it’s hard to tell how far off they are—in the vast expanse of dry, packed earth, the horizon’s as much of a mirage as anything else. Keith spies starlight through the crooked slats of the roof, wonders if Shiro’s somewhere among them.The weeks pile up against one another; pile up against Keith’s skin, rubbing him raw.  Keith does his best to lose himself to the silence. To the temporary irritants of heat, of the sticky sheet of sweat that makes a permanent home out of his skin.Better to acknowledge the minor annoyances than to freefall into the chasm that lies beneath.





	ecdysis

Keith flees the Garrison for the desert. The shack, right where it’s always been, doesn’t acknowledge that the world’s tilted on its axis, that it’s being propped up by someone who can’t support their own weight.

It’s dust and dirt and the smell of creosote; it’s the wind combing through the brush; it’s the snakes, long, thin, and dusky, winding their way through the low plants, bellies pressed against the earth. It’s the way Keith spends his first night in the shack with his split knuckled fists soaking in a bowl of tepid water that’s long since stained pink.

(Keith is the purple, swollen skin stretched tight over the hollow socket where Iverson’s eye used to be.)

All things considered, Keith thinks Iverson got off light—he only lost an eye, Keith lost the one person who’d never given up on him.

Night falls and the temperature follows. The cold seeps in with the wind, whistling through the loose slats to tickle the hairs at the back of Keith’s neck. Somewhere outside, a coyote howls with no answer. It’s hard to tell how far off they are—in the vast expanse of dry, packed earth, the horizon’s as much of a mirage as anything else. Keith spies starlight through the crooked slats of the roof, wonders if Shiro’s somewhere among them.

The weeks pile up against one another; pile up against Keith’s skin, scraping him raw. Keith does his best to lose himself to the silence. To the temporary irritants of heat, of the sticky sheet of sweat that makes a permanent home out of his skin.

Better to acknowledge the minor annoyances than to freefall into the chasm that lies beneath.

Three—or six, or eight, or twenty—weeks in, and the desert hums at the back of Keith’s mind. The shack is as bare as ever. Now that the shack fits the barest category of shelter it’s outlived most of its usefulness. Keith spends most of his hours out in the dusty, heat soaked canyons, dipping and diving along the sheer cliff faces. In the rush of air whistling past his ears, he’s able to acknowledge, if only for a moment, that he’s in freefall.

Eight months in, and he gets caught in a lightning storm, the jagged bursts of electricity sparking through the sky, finding targets wherever they stretch out of the earth. The air rushes past his ears as he speeds close the ground, feet kicking up dirt. His skin feels charged—too tight, a tourniquet of flesh.

 _One. Tw_ —that’s as far as he gets before another burst of thunder rolls.

He reaches the shack just in time to hear a clap of thunder boom across the plain. His skin feels sticky and stretched too thin, ready to peel and reveal something that’s whole but not healed underneath.

_Something is coming._

**Author's Note:**

> +[tumblr](http://spookyfoot.tumblr.com)


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